Office 2019 for Mac Goes Read-Only in July ⇥ tidbits.com
Adam Engst, TidBits:
If you are still using Microsoft Office 2019 for Mac, it will stop working fully on 13 July 2026. Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook will enter “reduced functionality mode” — a euphemism meaning you can view and print documents but cannot edit, save, or create new ones. Microsoft’s documentation doesn’t clarify what this means for Outlook users.
Why is this happening? A certificate expiration is forcing Office 2019 into read-only mode, though Microsoft acknowledges this only obliquely in the FAQ. Without a current certificate, the apps can’t confirm you have a legitimate license.
Engst compares Microsoft’s approach to Apple’s when it issued an update earlier this year for decade-old iPhones, with a new certificate that allows iMessage and FaceTime to keep functioning. While Apple’s approach is welcome, it is also a good reminder why this proprietary service should always be paired with support for open standards like SMS and RCS.
[…] The customer did their part by paying; it was the company that chose to impose the activation model in order to weed out cheaters; shouldn’t it then own any problems that creates?
But it’s actually worse than that because even subscribing to Office 365 doesn’t fix the problem. You need a newer version of Office, which necessitates a newer version of macOS, which may necessitate getting a new Mac — all to fix what seems like an artificial problem.
My workday began with a notification from Teams that the desktop app will stop working on 20 July, as Microsoft says it is only compatible with the three most recent versions of MacOS. The oldest supported version, therefore, is MacOS Sonoma and, given Apple’s own support policy, that means only Macs released in the past eight years or so are supported. Even though many Macs from that era remain capable and fast, eight years is a long time, and Teams remains available through a web browser.
Also today, OneDrive automatically updated to a newer version, which is incompatible with the version of MacOS I am running. I received no warning until I tried launching it. Microsoft provides no support for this kind of problem for end users but, luckily, I had a Time Machine backup I could use. However, I realized OneDrive would probably automatically update and I would have to do all this all over again, and it contains no relevant preferences. So I needed to delete the related files in /Library/LaunchAgents and /Library/LaunchDaemons and then, thanks to a tip from Sébastien Marchal, block the updater domain in my /etc/hosts file.
The software Microsoft makes is often the kind of thing people are required to use for their job. We do not have a choice of whether to have it installed. It would be nice if Microsoft cared just a little bit more about the durability of what it ships.